I am going to give a full-quote treatment to the post at Sankaku Complex (always NSFW) (via) that translates remarks by Ken Akamatsu, the mangaka behind Love Hina and Negima:

Certainly, the moe boom is finished, and from last year on I think we’re seeing the following phenomena:

1. Male protagonists are absent

Many anime are now nothing but girls, and the role of the “male character being excited by female characters for viewers to empathise with” has disappeared.

2. Male buying power has reduced

Now women buyers of both anime and manga are predominant. Oricon comic rankings show most of the top titles are women-oriented.

3. Male viewers can now empathise with female characters

The number of male fans who simply don’t view female characters as objects of sexual desire at all is increasing, even in titles like “K-ON!”. No more are they just thinking “I want to be part of that circle,” now they are getting into the characters themselves.

A friend of mine was saying “this will be the year of yuri!” thanks to number 3, but unfortunately I get the feeling the popularity of yuri is not quite that great…

Question of loli vs. yuri aside, it is noticeable that themes ebb and vane in anime, the most suffering right now is the giant robot.

One thing that concerns me here is what programmers know as “do a ESR” or “ESR syndrome” (after Eric S. Raymond). It means that once you stop hacking and start writing about “trends”, you degenerate into a blowhard (and a hello to Paul Graham too, who fights it valiantly). Akamatsu at least continues to draw Negima so hopefuly he’s immune do such deprofessionalization, but if an animeblogger were posting blog entires like that it would be worrisome indeed.

This entry was posted
on Tuesday, August 24th, 2010 at 5:07 pm and is filed under anime.